The Best Walking Tours to Take in Oaxaca

Walking | Daniel79 / 70 Images/Pixabay

There’s nothing like taking a walking tour around a city, free or otherwise, to get to know it better. If that tour is combined with a particularly hilarious tour guide or insider info on where to get the best tacos, even better! Here’s our pick of Oaxaca’s best inner city walking tours for food lovers, church fans and even gluten-free Celiac sufferers who want to indulge in Oaxacan cuisine.

Hoofing it in Oaxaca

One of the best and most well-organized walking tour organisations, and perhaps one of the few not-for-profit ones too, is Hoofing it in Oaxaca – an amusingly named company providing walking tours and hikes for visitors dropping by Oaxaca in the temperate winter months. So, if you want to take part in one of their weekly or biweekly 3-7-mile-long day hikes, some of which visit famed archaeological sites, you’ll need to be in Oaxaca between November and March.

Casa Machaya Walking Tour

Alternatively, if you’d rather ‘do it yourself’ with a walking tour in Oaxaca, instead of being led by a tour guide or ferried around in a group, then Oaxaca’s Casa Machaya provides a comprehensive walking tour overview on its website. Described as a “down-and-dirty single touring route for those who will be in the city for only a short period of time,” it’s recommended that you do it in the morning and return to anything that interests you later on. Take a look at their full route here, if you want to soak up the principal sites by yourself.

Roberto’s Cultural Walking Tour

Roberto’s Oaxaca Tours are generally rated as excellent, given that they can be entirely personalized to your requirements and overall schedule. However, we’re just focusing on his walking tours of Oaxaca City for this entry. Departing from the zocalo at your chosen time, they last around two to three hours and can include anything in your field of interest (think churches or street food, markets or art galleries). Roberto’s tours typically cost around US$25 per person, but you’ll need to get in touch with him first at roberto_gavidia@yahoo.com.

Academic Tours Oaxaca (Street Food)

For a more specifically street food oriented tour, you might want to check out Academic Tours Oaxaca, a highly-rated and respectable tour agency in Oaxaca. This boutique company can design an itinerary to fit your needs, which involves anything culturally or historically interesting in the colonial center, but we really recommend going on their fantastic street food tour instead. Find current prices and contact details on the website.

Jodi Eats Oaxaca

If street food tours are your passion, but dietary requirements are your Achilles heel, then the Jodi Eats Oaxaca walking street food tour is the perfect solution. A Celiac sufferer herself, Jodi has hosted similar tours in Saigon and is a reputable and experienced guide. However, given the niche interest of this particular tour, it’s somewhat pricier than other Oaxaca walking tours, with each multi-hour market, mezcal and memela-filled wander costing US$70 per person. Jodi will be starting these up again on weekdays only starting October 2017. Get in touch via her website to register your interest.

El Andar del Caracol

Finally, you can take a photography tour in Oaxaca with El Andar del Caracol, a tour agency that also has a number of itineraries in other cities that may interest the more adventurous travelers among you. However, if you want to get that perfect snap for the Insta in one of Mexico’s prettiest and most colorful towns, then we highly recommend their photography tour. Get in touch with them through their totally bilingual website for more information.